


Help

by Winstonian1



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Austria, Bahamas, Beatles Fanfiction, Gen, Help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26578636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winstonian1/pseuds/Winstonian1
Summary: The Beatles are filming Help. George is having fun but, during evenings and leisure times, he's becoming increasingly frustrated at the other Beatles ignoring his compositions. At the same time, odd coincidences are leading him to be intrigued with Eastern culture. He's finding himself in a transition time, where his identity is moving on to somewhere new.
Relationships: Pattie Boyd/George Harrison
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. 25th February 1965 The Bahamas

25th February 1965  
The Bahamas

The sky was an unclouded blue, but it was nowhere near as hot as it looked as if it should be, and nowhere near as hot as they all thought it would be. The Bahamas, yeah! But in reality, no. The Beatles were disappointed. But still, they weren’t there for a holiday anyway, they were there to work, and so there they were, in the middle of a dusty road each holding on to a bicycle. It’s a good thing, what they say about riding a bike. It had been a long time for all of them, but they all remembered.  
Not that they had to ride them yet. As always, they had to stand around and stand around and stand around, waiting for they knew not what and cared even less.  
“Come onnn…” John sighed.  
“Better than hanging around at Marylebone though,” Ringo suggested encouragingly. It was true, the Bahamas were better than Marylebone Station, but the breeze was cool and the waiting seemed far worse this time around. Maybe the novelty had gone, disappeared over the space of a year, along with a lot of other things. Like time off.  
“Right, we’re all set,” said director Richard Lester, at last. “Get ready to ride the bikes forward, when I say.”  
“Not backwards?” enquired John, and Lester shot him the briefest of glances.  
“Get ready,” he said, checking over his shoulder that the cameras were lined up to take the shot. Each Beatle climbed onto the saddle and steadied the bike with one leg, the other ready on the pedal. “And… Action!”  
The four Beatles shot forward. It would perhaps have been impossible for four young men, in the prime of life and permanently oozing testosterone, not to look on it as a race, and off they went, hunched over the handlebars and peddling as though their lives depended on it. Had they known, had they bothered to read the script, they would have found out that in the film their lives actually did depend on it. But it could not be said that that was the reason for their Olympic efforts to reach the lead. Lester regarded his stars in some dismay as, ignoring his yell of “Cut!!” they shot past him at high speed and disappeared into the middle distance, clouds of dust flying up and around them and gleeful Liverpudlian shouts and obscenities reaching his ears as the four eventually wobbled and collided and crashed to a halt, almost out of sight of the astonished film crew.  
Richard Lester took a deep breath.  
This was only day one.  
They’d calm down. Eventually.  
He walked along the road to find them, enjoying, despite the irritations of the day, the bright blue clear sunshine, and reached them in a surprisingly equable mood. He looked down at them where they sprawled grinning on the wide deserted road. They were covered in dust and Paul’s face was unaccountably grubby. Continuity, he reflected wearily. They never seemed to grasp that essential.  
“I won,” George beamed, his face guilelessly happy and his eyes sparkling below the thick dark fringe.  
“I’m glad to hear it,” Lester replied, and the sarcasm was not lost on the four. “But we need to get you back and tidy you up. For the shot. Okay?” He didn’t think he sounded too pleading.  
The four scrambled to their feet; Ringo started to wheel his bike back but the others simply rode back and he followed suit. By the time Lester reached them they were being brushed, dusted down, combed and scrubbed and were soon returned to their pre-race neatness. Lester found himself reminded of a lioness licking her cubs into shape, and shook his head to erase the odd image. “Right,” he said, hopefully. “Let’s get ready to go again. Lights?” He turned back to the crew.  
“Who’s that?” asked one of the cameramen, pointing back along the road and Lester followed his gaze.  
“Who the ‘ell’s that?” echoed John. Everyone turned to look at the odd figure approaching. It was a man, of indeterminate age, dressed in traditional Indian garb of tunic and broad loose trousers, and he was carrying a large bag. He was also very obviously making for the little film unit on the road.  
“Oh no,” the beleaguered director sighed under his breath. He, along with everyone else, waited until the man had plodded right up to them and paused with them, a smile on his face. “I’m sorry,” Lester began. “We do have to get on…”  
“I am Swami Vishnu Devananda,” he said.  
“Oh yeah?” Paul put in. “How d’ya do.” The man appeared to ignore him, and instead reached into the bag which was hanging on his shoulder.  
“I wish to give you a gift.”  
The Beatles were unimpressed. They had gifts thrust upon them wherever they went, whenever they paused for breath, and the only thing that made this different was the strange appearance of this one out of nowhere. They stood, motionless, holding the bikes and waiting. The man brought out four books. “I wish you to have them,” he went on, and handed each Beatle a book. George frowned as he looked at it.  
“Yoga?” he said to the man.  
“Sivananda yoga. A way of life.”  
George frowned again. “How come? I thought it was just exercises.”  
Swami Vishnu Devananda looked carefully at him. “Not just exercises. You will find out.”  
George suddenly grinned and looked around at the others.” Hey! It’s my birthday. He’s given me a pressie!”  
Dick Lester decided that enough precious time had been spent on this man and his books. He nodded at the swami, and said, “Well, I am sorry, but we do have to carry on now. Shall I take the books for now?” he added to the four, and he reached out his hands to take them. George flipped through the pages briefly and then handed the book over. He turned back to the swami.  
“Thank you for my pressie,” he said with a smile, and the man smiled back and bowed a ‘namaste’, before turning back the way he’d come and plodding off through the sunshine.  
“That was weird,” said John into the new silence.  
“Ok,” called Lester, yet again. “Let’s get on. Boys, ready with the bikes. Set off when I say. And, don’t have a race!!”  
They grinned in reply. And Lester sighed, again.

Much later that day saw George curled up on his bed, and he was managing telephone, drink and cigarette with practised ease. The phone was resting on his shoulder and he was leaning back against the headboard, eyes closed, listening closely.  
“Are they doing anything for your birthday?” Pattie was asking. She sounded as sad as he felt.  
“They did a cake,” he said. “And the crew gave me a bottle of rum. One of those big ones, you know?”  
“Have you finished it yet?”  
“Ha ha,” was his reply. He took another sip of the rum and coke from the glass by the bed, and another drag of his cigarette. “It’s ok.”  
“Was the filming ok?”  
“Yeah, you know.” And then he smiled to himself and went on, “And there was this weird man, this Indian man. He turned up in the middle of nowhere and gave me a book. Well, all of us. About yoga.”  
“Yoga?”  
“Yeah. I thought it was funny. Strange you know. This man giving me a book on my birthday when he didn’t know who I was.”  
Pattie laughed. “Are you sure he didn’t know who you were?”  
“What d’ya mean?”  
“Well, most people do.”  
“Oh, I get you. Well, I don’t know. But anyway. That happened today. That’s it really. I…” He trailed off.  
“What?”  
“Hmmm?”  
“What were you going to say?”  
He hesitated again, feeling uncomfortable.  
“George? What?”  
He exhaled sharply, and took another swig of his drink. “Oh… we were sitting around, with the guitars, you know?” And he paused again, and Pattie nodded, and he knew that she had even though he couldn’t see her. “And you know I’ve been working on a new song?” Another pause for her unspoken assent. ” It was… oh you know. Nothing really. But…I was trying to talk about the idea I had for it, what I was trying for, and they weren’t paying any attention at all, you know.”  
“Which song?”  
“Think for Yourself.”  
“I like that one.”  
“They don’t.”  
“Oh, they probably do. They were just…”  
“Ignoring it.”  
“George, I’m sorry…”  
He wished he was with her, not just talking to her from thousands of miles away. He wished he was curled up with her, not just with a drink and a ciggie. He missed her desperately and all the grass in the world couldn’t obliterate his sense of desolation right now. “I wish I was home.”  
“So do I.”  
“I know. But, hey, guess what?”  
“What?” Her voice sounded brighter at the sound of his sudden cheer.  
“They said you can come to Austria when we do the next lot! All of you, Mo and Cyn and… Paul’s not sure if Jane can come, she might be working, but you can come! So that’ll be soon.”  
“Oh George!!” she squealed. “That’s great!! Oh…”  
“Oh god what?”  
“No no, it’s ok, I’m coming. I just need to get skiing clothes.”  
“Course you do.” But he was smiling and she heard it in his voice.  
“Well I do! I can’t turn up in…”  
“I know! You can get that sorted while we’re still here?”  
“I will. I’ll see if Mo wants to go with me.”  
“Ok.”  
The conversation lapsed, and both stayed with their thoughts for a while. George drained his drink. “Do you need to go to sleep? It’s late there.”  
“Not really. Not yet. Can you stay on a while?”  
George smiled again, and shifted the phone receiver nearer his ear. “Yeah, I can.” He paused again, his eyes closed. “What are you doing?”  
“I’m in bed.”  
His smile turned decidedly mischievous. “What are you doing?”  
“Well, nothing.”  
The mischievous smile broadened. “P’raps you should be doing something.”  
There fell another pause, as Pattie caught on to the drift of the conversation. Then “What do you suggest?” she asked him, her voice almost a whisper.


	2. 19th March 1965 Obertauern, Austria

Richard Lester picked up the phone, tentatively. He knew who the caller was, he’d been told to expect the call. He just didn’t want the call. He swallowed, to clear his voice of any trace of nerves…  
“Dick!”  
It was his name. He knew there was nothing more in the greeting, no veiled insults…  
“Dick!!”  
“Walter,” he managed. “How are you?”  
“I’m fine.” The voice sounded dismissive. The voice wanted to move straight on to why the voice had called. “Dick, I have to say, I’m getting a little worried here.”  
“Worried.” Dick Lester didn’t insult the other’s intelligence by turning the word into a question. Unfortunately, he knew exactly why the other man was, as he said, worried. So was he…  
“What’s going on?”  
“Going on?”  
“Dick, why are you so overdue? What’s happening? The Austria section should have been wrapped up days ago. What’s going on?”  
Lester took a deep breath. He wasn’t really decided on how to balance his reply. There were so many factors he could blame the delays on, four to be precise; yet, he was the director and he was being paid to sort those factors out. It was a tough one, this phone call…  
“Dick!!!”  
“We are getting there, Walter. We should be wrapped in four days…”  
“But why has it taken so long to get here? That’s what I don’t understand.”  
Another deep breath. “Walter.” Lester decided to go for a modicum of the truth. “It’s the boys.”  
“The boys.”  
“Yeah, the boys.”  
“Well, what about them?”  
“It’s… sometimes… difficult… to get them to keep at it, you know? It’s sometimes hard to get them all to keep on at the job for the day…”  
Walter Shenson, producer, frowned down the phone from the other end of the line. "Well, wha’dya mean? They were fine when I saw them working in London.”  
“Ah yes.” Lester paused again, as he tried to assemble the right words. “That was the last film though.”  
“So what’s the difference? They were great on that one! Keen, hardworking…”  
Lester closed his eyes momentarily, as he tried, and failed, to apply those adjectives to the group he was working with on this film. “Ah, I think it’s kind of that the first film was a novelty for them, you know? It was all new so they had fun. But now they’re not so engaged, you know?”  
Lester waited in the brief silence. It was a very brief silence.  
“Well, Dick, that just isn’t good enough. They need to pull their finger out and get on with it. I don’t care who they are, there’s a job to be done here…”  
Lester listened to the all too predictable barrage from the other man, the one who was responsible for the film being brought in on time. As Shenson filled his ears with the figures he knew only too well about how much each day’s delay cost, he resigned himself and waited. And when it ended he said all that he could say, really. “I know, Walter. I know. I have told them. And I’ll tell them again. I promise you, we’ll get it wrapped on time.” And, with that impossible promise, Walter Shenson ended the call.  
Lester knew what had to be done. He just didn’t relish doing it. He lit a cigarette, stood for a while in almost despairing solitude, and then turned and plodded through the Edelweiss Hotel towards the suite which the Beatles had staked out as their quarters for the duration of the filming. He arrived at the door, sent up a brief prayer, and knocked and went in.  
The music, faintly heard from outside the door, became louder. It was in truth not playing so loudly that it would prohibit conversation, but still he pointed at the record player and gestured to ask for the volume to come down. The Beatle nearest, Paul as it happened, complied, and four sets of eyes regarded their director. Richard Lester looked back at them.  
What he found somewhat off-putting was that none of them seemed inclined to ask him what he wanted, why he had visited their abode. The four simply regarded him from wherever they were seated or sprawled. Their body language was relaxed. Their eyes were somewhere else altogether. They were, inevitably, stoned. Very stoned.  
“I’ve just had a phone call from Walter Shenson.” Lester decided that someone had to kick off the conversation and they certainly weren’t going to.  
“Oh yeah?” That was John. With anyone else it might have been encouraging that there had been a response, but not with John. That could be leading anywhere.  
Lester decided to sit down. He found a spare chair, and carried on. “He wanted to know why the filming is behind schedule.”  
A response. You had to know the group to detect it, but Richard Lester, veteran of one and a half films with them, did know them reasonably well, well enough to feel the almost imperceptible change in the room. The four men knew that they were being criticised; that was for sure. Were they concerned? Not at all. However, what Lester did become aware of, though he didn’t know how he was aware because there were no moves, changes of expression and certainly no words, was a tightening of the bond of unity between the four. It was as though an invisible net, one that was in fact always there but not so evident as right now, had been tightened, strengthened, and the people in the room now comprised four people who functioned as one entity, and Richard Lester, who was so far outside it that he may as well have been in a different hotel.  
He had no idea how that happened, but happened it had and it did not bode well for his proposed motivational speech about speeding up the filming. He leaned forward in his chair, to show he meant business. If you had to identify any response to that from the Beatles, they perhaps seemed vaguely amused.  
“Look,” he began, predictably. “I know…” What did he know? He knew that they were off their combined heads for most of every day. And he knew that they were simply not as interested in this film as they had been in the last one. However, they were now committed to the film and it had to be finished. “I know you don’t feel a lot like working at the moment, well, these days…” He paused, and looked directly into their placid and indifferent faces. There was only one way forward. He could of course insist; he knew how far he’d get with that ploy. So… “All I can do is just ask you to get on with it. For me? For whatever reason. But please, boys, please – smoke whatever you want if you want but please could we get through the days’ work so that Shenson stays off my back and we can get this done.” He paused again. “Please?”  
He subsided.  
A silence fell. Eerily, Lester became aware that there was unspoken communication going on between the four of them, on a level that no-one else could reach or understand. He saw George cut glances with Ringo, who was the Beatle next to him. He saw a slight smile appear on the face of Paul, and it was not an unkind smile. And then he saw John look around at the others, and knew that that was the signal that a conclusion had been reached. But, what was the conclusion?  
John smiled. An ordinary smile. “We’ll ‘ave to see what we can do then. Won’t we,” he announced, and the unspoken concurrence from the other three rippled around the group. Some blessed instinct had led Lester to simply appeal to their good natures, and it had worked.  
For now, sounded the voice of caution in his head.

Later that evening  
George opened the door to the main suite and moved slowly through the fug of the cigarette and joint smoke to the sofa he’d recently been sharing with Pattie. Pattie herself was tucked up in bed; in fact George had just tucked her up himself, having carried her there amidst giggles and squeaks of alarm lest he drop her. She had been forced, unwillingly, to plead an early night, being laid low by the pain of a seriously twisted ankle after she’d slipped on the snow a couple of days before, and by the combination of alcohol, grass and the heavy duty pain killers she’d been given. George had deposited her in their bed, leaving her with a cup of hot chocolate by the bedside and with the promise that he wouldn’t be late coming to bed himself. Now, he curled himself up on the corner of the sofa and reached for the album cover on which were scattered papers, tobacco and grass. He began to assemble the next joint.  
“Is she ok?” Ringo enquired kindly, and George smiled at him and nodded.  
“She’s fine. Just tired.”  
“I think Mo’ll be next.” Ringo gestured with his head towards his wife, who was sitting next to him and in fact looked as if she’d already dozed off.  
“No I won’t!” came the sleepy rejoinder from the lady herself, but she did in truth think that it sounded like a good idea. She’d been waiting to feel the spring-like energy that she’d been told would come in the early stages of pregnancy but, in truth, between bouts of nausea and novel reactions to food she never seemed to feel much like anything these days.  
“Go on. Go to bed. I won’t be long,” said Ringo, and it seemed to be all the urging she needed. She stiffly uncurled her legs from under her and pushed herself to her feet.  
“Night all,” she said, and left the room to a chorus of ’night night’s and ‘sleep well’s.  
“Oh well, if they’re all gone…” said Cynthia, as she too clambered to her feet and drained the last of her drink. “I’ll leave the gentlemen to pass the port and tell dirty stories.”  
“Eh?” asked George, as he finished assembling the joint and looked for his lighter.  
“Never mind.” She yawned. “See you all bright and early.”  
“Don’t remind us,” muttered Paul from the corner of the room. “You’re lucky, you don’t have to get up.”  
Cynthia ignored the complaint, since she and the other girls had heard it several times every day since filming had begun, and she too left the room, leaving the four Beatles together, to pass not the port but the hefty joint that George had just rolled. An onlooker in the room, of which there were none, would have sensed a change in the atmosphere. Not one of relief, or release, but simply a return to that entity that was just-the-Beatles. The impenetrable club of four, observed by recording managers, road managers and anyone else having anything to do with them. Paul poured himself another drink. John stretched out full length on his sofa. The four sat for a while, silent and s  
“How much longer have we got of it?” The question had come from John, prone with eyes on the ceiling. They all knew what he was referring to.  
“Dunno,” answered Paul, after a lengthy pause. The pause had been lengthy because no-one could be bothered to think about the answer.  
“A month?” ventured Ringo. John groaned.  
“Well,” offered Paul, in a lazy and slurred version of his customary earnestness, “some of it is up to us, isn’t it. From what Dick said this morning. We need to just get on with it.”  
“It’s a fucking drag,” commented John from the depths of his sofa.  
“It’s alright,” said Ringo, in a tone which suggested that he thought it was more than alright. “I think it’s good.”  
“You’ve got the best part,” said Paul. Was there a hint of resentment in his voice? George looked at him as carefully as the joint would allow, and concluded that there was.  
“It’s shit. It all is.”  
George peered at John from across the room. “Do you mean the film?” he asked. “Or do you mean everything?”  
John turned his head to look at George appraisingly. “What do you think?”  
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”  
John continued to stare at George, who handed him the joint and then sat back with his drink. Paul and Ringo looked on with interest, everyone being gradually aware that a significant conversation was being had.  
“I don’t know. I…” That was as far as John got, and the others waited. “The film’s stupid, for a kick-off.”  
“I like it,” said Ringo, predictably.  
“You like acting. And you’re good at it.”  
“I like filming,” he concluded, simply.  
“We do have to do it,” Paul put in.  
“Why?”  
“Contract.”  
“But they could have picked something better.”  
“Or written us better.” George spoke up for the first time.  
“That’s not so bad,” said Paul.  
George turned to look at him. “Well yeah, you’d like it, wouldn’t you. They’ve got you down as the cute one who gets the girl.” George was smiling as he delivered this comment; deliberately. But Paul took it seriously.  
“No, not cos of that,” he protested, but the other three laughed and he felt he had to defend his position. “I mean, that could have been any of us.”  
“Obviously Paul, but it wasn’t.”  
“Would you want that then?”  
“God no,” said George, and meant it. “You can keep the romantic lead, it’s okay.” In his stoned mind he turned over the thought of playing that role and actually shuddered. He reached out for the stuff and started to build another joint, and as his fingers were kept busy he found himself thinking around another thought, which took a while to formulate. When he had, he broke the silence and spoke up again.  
“We’re all playing roles though, aren’t we. All the time.”  
John peered at him again through the smoke. “What d’ya mean?”  
George struggled to express his befuddled half thought out idea, head on one side and his eyes shut. “I mean – none of it’s real. None of it. Not just the film. The whole thing.” He paused again, and said it. “The Beatles.”  
“The Beatles is real,” said Paul.  
“Yeah, I know, but we aren’t. We…” He got stuck for words again; not surprisingly, as he didn’t remember thinking such things before. “You know. We’re trotted out on stages and film sets and sing tunes and play songs…”  
“That’s what we do!” Paul interrupted, but George jumped back in.  
“Yeah, it’s what we do, but it’s not who we are! Is it?”  
“It’s who I am,” said Paul.  
George paused in his joint-making activity and stared across at Paul and reflected on his last comment. He thought about Paul on stage. He thought about Paul out in public anywhere, on the film set, in interviews. He nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said eventually. He looked back down at the papers and grass and then back up at Paul again. “Yeah. It is who you are.”  
From across the room John gave a harsh laugh. “Well it sure as fuck isn’t who I am.”  
George looked at him. “Nor me,” he said. He lit the joint and inhaled deeply.  
Paul sat up and reached forward for the joint, which George handed over. “Oh come on! We’re doing what we’ve always done. We’re still doing what we were doing in Liverpool, and Hamburg. We haven’t changed.”  
“Yes we ‘ave,” said John. “I have.”  
“Okay,” demanded Paul to George. “If you’ve changed, who’ve you changed into? Who are you now?”  
George leaned back into the softness of the sofa and closed his eyes. He thought for a while. “I don’t know,” he said quietly, eyes still closed. “I don’t know. But I’m not…” Another pause. This was truly too complicated for him after that much grass, but he did feel it was important to work it out. For himself, if not for the others. He shook his head. “No,” he said eventually. “We’re not the same. None of us are. So it’s not have we changed. It’s who have we changed into. Or,” and he opened his eyes and looked around at the others and it finally dawned on him what his point was, “who are we changing into. Where are we going? Where are we going to?”  
“Fucking ‘ell George,” Paul laughed. “You’ll be asking next what’s the meaning of life!”  
“Yeah, but what is it?”  
“I don’t know!” And Paul was still laughing.  
“I like what we’re doing. I like the shows and I like the filming.” Ringo was pouring himself another drink, and George waved his glass at him to ask for a refill. “I’m fine with it, as long as it lasts.”  
“So am I. And so are you George, whatever you say. You’re just stoned. That’s all this is.  
George wondered whether it was worth trying to argue or to refine his point, but decided it wasn’t. Paul could think what he wanted, and he would anyway. He looked across at John again, and met an answering and understanding gaze. George knew John was dissatisfied, he made no secret of it. But that angry dissatisfaction wasn’t the root of George’s self-questioning, not really. Thinking about the characters in the film had nudged at something in his brain, something that wasn’t going away. He knew he was more than the money obsessed boy in the film, though presumably lots of people would think that that was who he was. But he also knew that he was more than the guitarist on the stage, with one song per show and two songs on each album. He knew he could do more. He knew he was more. He just didn’t know what yet.  
But he would.  
“What’s the time?” It was John who wanted to know. Ringo squinted at his watch.  
“2.20.”  
George groaned. “I told Pattie I wouldn’t be late,” he said, starting to push himself to his feet.  
“So did I.” George peered at Ringo as he tottered to his feet.  
“Why did you tell Pattie you wouldn’t be late?”  
“No! I mean…!”  
“I know.” George was smiling as he made his way across the room towards his bedroom door. “See you all tomorrow. Bright and early, six o’clock.”  
“Fuck off,” snarled John. And George grinned across at him before opening his door, stepping inside the darkened bedroom and closing the door quietly behind him.


	3. 7th May 1965 Kinfauns, Esher.

George Harrison was sitting cross legged on his bedroom floor and in front of him was an open suitcase with clothes spilling out of it onto the carpet. He was looking at the clothes with little enthusiasm. He reached over to one side and picked up the glass of wine and took another procrastinating gulp.  
“It’s easy. It’s all dirty washing. All you need to do is put it in the wash.”  
“If it’s that easy why didn’t you do it for me?”  
“Why on earth should I?” Sometimes Pattie sounded like Lady Muck, he reflected, silently. Which was probably unfair; she couldn’t help having a posh voice. “It’s your luggage. I’m not your servant.” She softened the strictness of her words with a warm smile, and then passed him the joint she’d been smoking. “If you’d done it when you got back…”  
“I didn’t have time,” he bleated, unconvincingly. He took a drag at the joint, and then tugged out a folded black pullover. “I never wore this.”  
“You might as well chuck it in. It won’t smell very nice after being with your old socks for weeks.”  
“Oh ok,” he muttered and, getting up on to his knees, he reached into the case and pulled out a big armful of clothes and dumped them on the carpet. As they landed he heard a quiet thump and reached under the clothes. He pulled out a book. “Oh yeah” he exclaimed with a big grin, turning to Pattie. “I’d forgotten this. It’s my birthday present!”  
“Your what?”  
“You remember I said? This weird Indian guy turned up out of nowhere on my birthday and gave us all a book. It’s about yoga.”  
Pattie leaned forward curiously. “Let’s see.” He slid it across the carpet and she reached down and retrieved it. “It’s not just exercises.”  
“That’s what I said.”  
“It looks quite serious. All about the religious side.” Pattie was flipping through the book as she spoke. “Who was he?”  
George shook his head. “Dunno. He just turned up.” He held out his hand and Pattie gave him the book back, and he sat back down cross legged again and had a look through some of the pages. “It’s funny.”  
“What is?”  
He looked up at her and passed back the joint and then settled back down. “The other day I found that instrument I really liked. That sitar. I loved the sound it made. I was thinking I might try and get one. And then I get given a book about Indian stuff.” He smiled up at her through his long fringe. “It’s like I’m supposed to be thinking about Indian things.” He looked down at the book again and then back up at her. “Like a sign, yer know.” Pattie smiled at him as she took a puff of the joint, and then she got to her feet and moved towards the door.  
“What’ya doing?”  
“Music’s stopped,” she called back over her shoulder and she went to change the record. George meanwhile, his expression a combination of distaste and annoyance, grabbed all the clothes he could carry and took them across to the washing basket. “What don’t you just take the case over there?” prompted Pattie as she returned.  
“I said you should have done it.”  
“And I said…”  
“I know.” He finished bundling the washing into the basket and put the lid on, and then back turned to her. “Do you think I could use the sitar on a song?”  
“One of yours?”  
He nodded, as they left the bedroom together and walked along the hall towards the large sitting room. “I could.”  
“Yes you could.”  
“I like the sound, I could build a song round that.”  
“What would they think?”  
George shrugged, as he dropped down onto one of the large floor cushions and started to roll another joint. Pattie came to sit next to him. “Same as they always think? Not much.”  
“Oh George. I’m sure…” But she trailed off, not at all sure if she was sure; it was an old well-worn discussion. She lapsed into a silence which she hoped sounded sympathetic, but he turned his head and looked at her with a smile. It was a smile that said that he knew she was on his side in whatever issues he had with the others. Well, with two of the others. She shifted closer to him and snuggled against his side and he left the business of making the joint and put both of his arms around her. They sat, quiet and close, and he kissed the top of her head. And then the silence morphed into another sort of silence, and George moved his head back slightly so that he could look at her properly.  
“What?”  
He didn’t have to say anything else. Pattie took a breath.  
“I just wondered… I just wanted to know…” She looked up at him and looked directly into his eyes. “Has she been in touch with you again?”  
George made no effort to avoid her gaze, and simply shook his head. “I told you. It’s finished.”  
“But she keeps calling you…”  
“And I keep ignoring her.” Silence fell again. “What?” he asked again. “What’s in your mind now?”  
Pattie looked up at him, her expression almost defiant. “She’s just your type,” she declared. George raised his eyebrows.  
“So are you.” Pattie opened her mouth to speak again but George jumped in first. “I’ve said, it’s finished. She might have had a chance if I didn’t have you, but I have and you’re the one I want. Not Joey. You.” He smiled at her and then kissed her again. “She can leave me her number and I can call her when you and me are finished. Which is never.”  
She stared at him. “You won’t…”  
“I won’t.”  
“But you did.”  
George chewed at the inside of his mouth but didn’t try to break her gaze. “I know.”  
“So why…?”  
George interrupted again. “Because I’m a shit. And because I didn’t realise how much I love you. I didn’t know how it was going to grow. I should have stopped her hassling ages ago, I shouldn’t even have started it. But I didn’t know what you and me were going to be.” He paused, and drew some strands of her hair back from her face where they were trailing. “You know all this. I’ve said it and you know it.” Pattie looked down at her lap. “Now you have to just believe me.” He smiled at her again. “I could write a song for you about it. Couldn’t I. I could say I love you too much and so she’ll just have to fuck off and leave me alone”  
Pattie managed a small smile. “They wouldn’t let you say that in a song.”  
“Well, maybe I’ll change the words a bit. I could try and use the sitar on it as well.” He paused and thought. ”Or maybe not. No, I’ll use the new Rick. Yeah?”  
And that, reflected Pattie as she finished making the joint and looked for the lighter, was the best she was going to get. He was her boyfriend, and they’d both decided he was going to be her husband. He was also a musician, and the creating and the making his music was embedded into his every thought and action. And, overarching all that, with all its joy and its frustration and all the laughing and all the tears, was the Beatles, that closed entity which neither she nor anyone else could never fully understand but which was always going to claim the lion’s share of his heart and mind.  
As she nestled back against him again and squeezed her arms around his slender waist and kissed his neck, she reckoned that that was a deal she was more than prepared to accept.  
It was a pretty good deal.


End file.
